Thanks to everyone for your constructive comments on the previous (18 March)
draft of "Encoding Dublin Core Metadata in HTML". Enclosed is a new draft
that incorporates them and that should be ready very soon to submit to the
RFC Editor for consideration as an Informational RFC.
The changes from the 18 March draft to the present (18 May) draft are minor:
1. Removed the Coverage example connoting the short-lived "audience"
interpretation (proposed and later withdrawn by the Coverage WG).
2. Changed the ISO8601 Date example to distance it further from the
DC-recommended scheme, which we expect to acquire the "/" range
separator from ISO8601. Changed the other Date examples so that it's
clearer which sets of two digits correspond to the month and day.
3. Moved the References section to the very end, where it's more
easily accessible to readers.
4. A very few miscellaneous edits (connector words, punctuation).
The rest of this message has two parts. First are the "diffs", a computer
generated listing of each detailed change, from which I've suppressed
changes due only to line re-wrapping and section displacement. Following
that is the new draft. Note that this draft is _not_ yet available from
the IETF Internet Draft archives (or sold in stores); it is available
exclusively on this mailing list pending late-breaking comments that this
announcement may scare up.
Comments welcome as usual; please send them to dc-general by next Tuesday.
-John
------- detailed differences '<' = 18 March, '>' = 18 May -------
2,4c2,4
< draft-kunze-dchtml-00.txt
< 18 March 1999 Dublin Core
< Expires 18 September 1999 Workshop Series
---
> draft-kunze-dchtml-01.txt
> 18 May 1999 Dublin Core
> Expires 18 November 1999 Workshop Series
9c9
< (ftp://ftp.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-kunze-dchtml-00.txt)
---
> (ftp://ftp.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-kunze-dchtml-01.txt)
58c58,60
< more expressive means of encoding metadata.
---
> more expressive means of encoding metadata. The [RDF] specification
> actually describes a way to use RDF within an HTML document by adhering
> to an abbreviated syntax.
104c106
< content = "Marx, K">
---
> content = "Marx, K.">
106c108
< content = "Engels, F">
---
> content = "Engels, F.">
215,219c217,221
< [HARVEST], [ISEARCH] among others. These conventions also work with the ...
---
> [HARVEST], and [ISEARCH], among others. These conventions also work ...
393c395
< content = "1998-05-01">
---
> content = "1998-05-14">
396c398
< content = "1998-05-01">
---
> content = "1998-05-14">
399c401
< content = "1998-05-01">
---
> content = "1998-05-14">
401c403
< content = "1998-05-11">
---
> content = "1998-05-21">
403c405
< content = "1998-05-20">
---
> content = "1998-05-28">
412c414
< content = "1998-01-05T08:15">
---
> content = "1998-12-02T16:59">
416c418
< content = "1998-01-05T08:15/1998-01-05T13:15">
---
> content = "98-W49-3T1659">
420c422
< content = "19980501">
---
> content = "19980514">
589,590d590
< <meta name = "DC.Coverage"
< content = "intended for nursing trainees">
592d591
<
727d725
< Voice: +1 510-525-8575
836,837c834,835
< or the document. Our variable references look like "(--mbVARNAME)", and
< here is what they look like inside a template:
---
> or within the document. Our variable references have the form
> "(--mbVARNAME)", and here is what they look like inside a template:
1042c1040
< Internet-Draft (Informational) Expires 18 September 1999
---
> Internet-Draft (Informational) Expires 18 November 1999
------- new draft -------
Internet-Draft (Informational) J. Kunze
draft-kunze-dchtml-01.txt
18 May 1999 Dublin Core
Expires 18 November 1999 Workshop Series
Encoding Dublin Core Metadata in HTML
(ftp://ftp.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-kunze-dchtml-01.txt)
1. Status of this Document
This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with all
provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task
Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups
may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as ``work in progress.''
To learn the current status of any Internet-Draft, please check the
``1id-abstracts.txt'' listing contained in the Internet-Drafts Shadow
Directories on ftp.is.co.za (Africa), nic.nordu.net (Europe),
munnari.oz.au (Pacific Rim), ds.internic.net (US East Coast), or
ftp.isi.edu (US West Coast).
Distribution of this document is unlimited. Please send comments to
[log in to unmask] or to the [log in to unmask] discussion list.
2. Abstract
The Dublin Core [DC1] is a small set of metadata elements for describing
information resources. This document explains how these elements are
expressed using the META and LINK tags of HTML [HTML4.0]. A sequence of
metadata elements embedded in an HTML file is taken to be a description
of that file. Examples illustrate conventions allowing interoperation
with current software that indexes, displays, and manipulates metadata,
such as [SWISH-E], [freeWAIS-sf2.0], [GLIMPSE], [HARVEST], [ISEARCH],
etc., and the Perl [PERL] scripts in the appendix.
3. HTML, Dublin Core, and Non-Dublin Core Metadata
The Dublin Core (DC) metadata initiative [DCHOME] has produced a small
set of resource description categories [DC1], or elements of metadata
(literally, data about data). Metadata elements are typically small
relative to the resource they describe and may, if the resource format
permits, be embedded in it. Two such formats are the Hypertext Markup
Language (HTML) and the Extensible Markup Language (XML); HTML is
currently in wide use, but once standardized, XML [XML] in conjunction
with the Resource Description Framework [RDF] promise a significantly
more expressive means of encoding metadata. The [RDF] specification
actually describes a way to use RDF within an HTML document by adhering
to an abbreviated syntax.
This document explains how to encode metadata using HTML 4.0 [HTML4.0].
It is not concerned with element semantics, which are defined elsewhere.
For illustrative purposes, some element semantics are alluded to, but
in no way should semantics appearing here be considered definitive.
The HTML encoding allows elements of DC metadata to be interspersed with
non-DC elements (provided such mixing is consistent with rules governing
use of those non-DC elements). A DC element is indicated by the prefix
"DC", and a non-DC element by another prefix; for example, the prefix
"ADMIN" is used with elements from the Admin Core [ADMIN].
4. The META Tag
The META tag of HTML is designed to encode a named metadata element.
Each element describes a given aspect of a document or other information
resource. For example, this tagged metadata element,
<meta name = "DC.Creator"
content = "Simpson, Homer">
says that Homer Simpson is the Creator, where the element named Creator
is defined in the DC element set. In the more general form,
<meta name = "PREFIX.ELEMENT_NAME"
content = "ELEMENT_VALUE">
the capitalized words are meant to be replaced in actual descriptions;
thus in the example,
ELEMENT_NAME was: Creator
ELEMENT_VALUE was: Simpson, Homer
and PREFIX was: DC
Within a META tag the first letter of a Dublin Core element name is
capitalized. DC places no restriction on alphabetic case in an element
value and any number of META tagged elements may appear together, in any
order. More than one DC element with the same name may appear, and each
DC element is optional. The next example is a book description with two
authors, two titles, and no other metadata.
<meta name = "DC.Title"
content = "The Communist Manifesto">
<meta name = "DC.Creator"
content = "Marx, K.">
<meta name = "DC.Creator"
content = "Engels, F.">
<meta name = "DC.Title"
content = "Capital">
The prefix "DC" precedes each Dublin Core element encoded with META,
and it is separated by a period (.) from the element name following it.
Each non-DC element should be encoded with a prefix that can be used to
trace its origin and definition; the linkage between prefix and element
definition is made with the LINK tag, as explained in the next section.
Non-DC elements, such as CreatorEmail from the Admin Core [ADMIN], may
appear together with DC elements, as in
<meta name = "DC.Creator"
content = "Da Costa, José">
<meta name = "ADMIN.CreatorEmail"
content = "[log in to unmask]">
<meta name = "DC.Title"
content = "Jesse "The Body" Ventura--A Biography">
This example also shows how some special characters may be encoded.
The author name in the first element contains a diacritic encoded as an
HTML character entity reference -- in this case an accented letter E.
Similarly, the last line contains two double-quote characters encoded
so as to avoid being interpreted as element content delimiters.
5. The LINK Tag
The LINK tag of HTML may be used to associate an element name prefix
with the reference definition of the element set that it identifies.
A sequence of META tags describing a resource is incomplete without
one such LINK tag for each different prefix appearing in the sequence.
The previous example could be considered complete with the addition of
these two LINK tags:
<link rel = "schema.DC"
href = "http://purl.org/DC/elements/1.0/">
<link rel = "schema.ADMIN"
href = "http://metadata.net/admin">
In general, the association takes the form
<link rel = "schema.PREFIX"
href = "LOCATION_OF_DEFINITION">
where, in actual descriptions, PREFIX is to be replaced by the prefix
and LOCATION_OF_DEFINITION by the URL or URN of the defining document.
When embedded in the HEAD part of an HTML file, a sequence of LINK and
META tags describes the information in the surrounding HTML file itself.
Here is a complete HTML file with its own embedded description.
<html>
<head>
<title> A Dirge </title>
<link rel = "schema.DC"
href = "http://purl.org/DC/elements/1.0/">
<meta name = "DC.Title"
content = "A Dirge">
<meta name = "DC.Creator"
content = "Shelley, Percy Bysshe">
<meta name = "DC.Type"
content = "poem">
<meta name = "DC.Date"
content = "1820">
<meta name = "DC.Format"
content = "text/html">
<meta name = "DC.Language"
content = "en">
</head>
<body><pre>
Rough wind, that moanest loud
Grief too sad for song;
Wild wind, when sullen cloud
Knells all the night long;
Sad storm, whose tears are vain,
Bare woods, whose branches strain,
Deep caves and dreary main, -
Wail, for the world's wrong!
</pre></body>
</html>
6. Encoding Recommendations
HTML allows more flexibility in principle and in practice than is
recommended here for encoding metadata. Limited flexibility encourages
easy development of software for extracting and processing metadata.
At this early evolutionary stage of internet metadata, easy prototyping
and experimentation hastens the development of useful standards.
Adherence is therefore recommended to the tagging style exemplified in
this document as regards prefix and element name capitalization,
double-quoting (") of attribute values, and not starting more than one
META tag on a line. There is much room for flexibility, but choosing
a style and sticking with it will likely make metadata manipulation and
editing easier. The following META tags adhere to the recommendations
and carry identical metadata in three different styles:
<META NAME="DC.Format"
CONTENT="text/html; 12 Kbytes">
<meta
Content = "text/html; 12 Kbytes"
Name = "DC.Format"
>
<meta name = "DC.Format" content = "text/html; 12 Kbytes">
Use of these recommendations is known to result in metadata that may
be harvested, indexed, and manipulated by popular, freely available
software packages such as [SWISH-E], [freeWAIS-sf2.0], [GLIMPSE],
[HARVEST], and [ISEARCH], among others. These conventions also work
with the metadata processing scripts appearing in the appendix, as well
as with most of the [DCPROJECTS] applications referenced from the
[DCHOME] site. Software support for the LINK tag and qualifier
conventions (see the next section) is not currently widespread.
Ordering of metadata elements is not preserved in general. Writers
of software for metadata indexing and display should try to preserve
relative ordering among META tagged elements having the same name (e.g.,
among multiple authors), however, metadata providers and searchers have
no guarantee that ordering will be preserved in metadata that passes
through unknown systems.
7. Dublin Core in Real Descriptions
In actual resource description it is often necessary to qualify Dublin
Core elements to add nuances of meaning. While neither the general
principles nor the specific semantics of DC qualifiers are within scope
of this document, everyday uses of the qualifier syntax are illustrated
to lend realism to later examples. Without further explanation, the
three ways in which the optional qualifier syntax can supplement the
META tag may be summarized as follows:
<meta lang = "LANGUAGE_OF_METADATA_CONTENT" ... >
<meta scheme = "CONTROLLED_FORMAT_OR_VOCABULARY_OF_METADATA" ... >
<meta name = "PREFIX.ELEMENT_NAME.SUBELEMENT_NAME" ... >
Accordingly, a posthumous work in Spanish might be described with
<meta name = "DC.Language"
scheme = "rfc1766"
content = "es">
<meta name = "DC.Title"
lang = "es"
content = "La Mesa Verde y la Silla Roja">
<meta name = "DC.Title"
lang = "en"
content = "The Green Table and the Red Chair">
<meta name = "DC.Date.Created"
content = "1935">
<meta name = "DC.Date.Available"
content = "1939">
8. Encoding Dublin Core Elements
This section consists of very simple Dublin Core encoding examples,
arranged by element.
Title (name given to the resource)
-----
<meta name = "DC.Title"
content = "Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon contamination">
<meta name = "DC.Title"
content = "Crime and Punishment">
<meta name = "DC.Title"
content = "Methods of Information in Medicine, Vol 32, No 4">
<meta name = "DC.Title"
content = "Still life #4 with flowers">
<meta name = "DC.Title"
lang = "de"
content = "Das Wohltemperierte Klavier, Teil I">
Creator (entity that created the intellectual content)
-------
<meta name = "DC.Creator"
content = "Gogh, Vincent van">
<meta name = "DC.Creator"
content = "van Gogh, Vincent">
<meta name = "DC.Creator"
content = "Mao Tse Tung">
<meta name = "DC.Creator"
content = "Mao, Tse Tung">
<meta name = "DC.Creator"
content = "Plato">
<meta name = "DC.Creator"
lang = "fr"
content = "Platon">
<meta name = "DC.Creator.Director"
content = "Sturges, Preston">
<meta name = "DC.Creator.Writer"
content = "Hecht, Ben">
<meta name = "DC.Creator.Producer"
content = "Chaplin, Charles">
Subject (topic or keyword)
-------
<meta name = "DC.Subject"
content = "heart attack">
<meta name = "DC.Subject"
scheme = "MESH"
content = "Myocardial Infarction; Pericardial Effusion">
<meta name = "DC.Subject"
content = "vietnam war">
<meta name = "DC.Subject"
scheme = "LCSH"
content = "Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975">
<meta name = "DC.Subject"
content = "Friendship">
<meta name = "DC.Subject"
scheme = "ddc"
content = "158.25">
Description (textual description or abstract)
-----------
<meta name = "DC.Description"
lang = "en"
content = "The Author gives some Account of Himself and Family
-- His First Inducements to Travel -- He is
Shipwrecked, and Swims for his Life -- Gets safe on
Shore in the Country of Lilliput -- Is made a
Prisoner, and carried up the Country">
<meta name = "DC.Description"
content = "A tutorial and reference manual for Java.">
<meta name = "DC.Description"
content = "Seated family of five, coconut trees to the left,
sailboats moored off sandy beach to the right,
with volcano in the background.">
Publisher (entity that made the resource available)
---------
<meta name = "DC.Publisher"
content = "O'Reilly">
<meta name = "DC.Publisher"
content = "Digital Equipment Corporation">
<meta name = "DC.Publisher"
content = "University of California Press">
<meta name = "DC.Publisher"
content = "State of Florida (USA)">
Contributor (other entity that made an intellectual contribution)
-----------
<meta name = "DC.Contributor"
content = "Curie, Marie">
<meta name = "DC.Contributor.Photographer"
content = "Adams, Ansel">
<meta name = "DC.Contributor.Artist"
content = "Sendak, Maurice">
<meta name = "DC.Contributor.Editor"
content = "Starr, Kenneth">
Date (of creation or availability of resource; [WTN8601] recommended)
----
<meta name = "DC.Date"
content = "1972">
<meta name = "DC.Date"
content = "1998-05-14">
<meta name = "DC.Date"
scheme = "WTN8601"
content = "1998-05-14">
<meta name = "DC.Date.Created"
content = "1998-05-14">
<meta name = "DC.Date.Available"
content = "1998-05-21">
<meta name = "DC.Date.Valid"
content = "1998-05-28">
<meta name = "DC.Date.Created"
content = "triassic">
<meta name = "DC.Date.Acquired"
content = "1957">
<meta name = "DC.Date.Accepted"
scheme = "WTN8601"
content = "1998-12-02T16:59">
<meta name = "DC.Date.DataGathered"
scheme = "ISO8601"
content = "98-W49-3T1659">
<meta name = "DC.Date.Issued"
scheme = "ANSI.X3.X30-1985"
content = "19980514">
Type (category or genre)
----
<meta name = "DC.Type"
content = "poem">
<meta name = "DC.Type"
scheme = "DCT1"
content = "software">
<meta name = "DC.Type"
content = "software program source code">
<meta name = "DC.Type"
content = "interactive video game">
<meta name = "DC.Type"
scheme = "DCT1"
content = "dataset">
<meta name = "DC.Type"
content = "web home page">
<meta name = "DC.Type"
content = "web bibliography">
<meta name = "DC.Type"
content = "painting">
<meta name = "DC.Type"
content = "image; woodblock">
<meta name = "DC.Type"
scheme = "AAT"
content = "clipeus (portrait)">
<meta name = "DC.Type"
lang = "en-US"
content = "image; advertizement">
<meta name = "DC.Type"
scheme = "DCT1"
content = "event">
<meta name = "DC.Type"
content = "event; periodic">
Format (data format, plus optional dimensions)
------
<meta name = "DC.Format"
content = "text/xml">
<meta name = "DC.Format"
scheme = "IMT"
content = "text/xml">
<meta name = "DC.Format"
scheme = "IMT"
content = "image/jpeg">
<meta name = "DC.Format"
content = "A text file with mono-spaced tables and diagrams.">
<meta name = "DC.Format"
content = "video/mpeg; 14 minutes">
<meta name = "DC.Format"
content = "unix tar archive, gzip compressed; 1.5 Mbytes">
<meta name = "DC.Format"
content = "watercolor; 23 cm x 31 cm">
Identifier (of the resource)
----------
<meta name = "DC.Identifier"
content = "http://foo.bar.org/zaf/">
<meta name = "DC.Identifier"
content = "urn:ietf:rfc:1766">
<meta name = "DC.Identifier"
scheme = "ISBN"
content = "1-56592-149-6">
<meta name = "DC.Identifier"
scheme = "LCCN"
content = "67-26020">
<meta name = "DC.Identifier"
scheme = "DOI"
content = "10.12345/33-824688ab">
Source (information about the resource's origin)
------
<meta name = "DC.Source"
content = "Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet">
<meta name = "DC.Source"
content = "http://a.b.org/manon/">
Language (of the content of the resource; [RFC1766] recommended)
--------
<meta name = "DC.Language"
content = "en">
<meta name = "DC.Language"
scheme = "rfc1766"
content = "en">
<meta name = "DC.Language"
scheme = "ISO639-2"
content = "eng">
<meta name = "DC.Language"
scheme = "rfc1766"
content = "en-US">
<meta name = "DC.Language"
content = "zh">
<meta name = "DC.Language"
content = "ja">
<meta name = "DC.Language"
content = "es">
<meta name = "DC.Language"
content = "de">
<meta name = "DC.Language"
content = "german">
<meta name = "DC.Language"
lang = "fr"
content = "allemand">
Relation (relationship to a second resource plus its identifier)
--------
<meta name = "DC.Relation.IsPartOf"
content = "http://foo.bar.org/abc/proceedings/1998/">
<meta name = "DC.Relation.IsFormatOf"
content = "http://foo.bar.org/cd145.sgml">
<meta name = "DC.Relation.IsVersionOf"
content = "http://foo.bar.org/draft9.4.4.2">
<meta name = "DC.Relation.References"
content = "urn:isbn:1-56592-149-6">
<meta name = "DC.Relation.IsBasedOn"
content = "Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet">
<meta name = "DC.Relation.Requires"
content = "LWP::UserAgent; HTML::Parse; URI::URL;
Net::DNS; Tk::Pixmap; Tk::Bitmap; Tk::Photo">
Coverage (spatial or temporal features of the intellectual content)
--------
<meta name = "DC.Coverage"
content = "US civil war era; 1861-1865">
<meta name = "DC.Coverage"
content = "Columbus, Ohio, USA; Lat: 39 57 N Long: 082 59 W">
<meta name = "DC.Coverage"
scheme = "TGN"
content = "Columbus (C,V)">
Rights (text or identifier of a rights management statement)
------
<meta name = "DC.Rights"
lang = "en"
content = "Copyright Acme 1999 - All rights reserved.">
<meta name = "DC.Rights"
content = "http://foo.bar.org/cgi-bin/terms">
9. Security Considerations
Metadata element encoding poses no risk to computers and networks. It
poses minimal risk to searchers who might obtain incorrect information
due to deliberate misrepresentation of resource metadata (e.g., index
spam). It also poses minimal risk to providers who might accidentally
expose private metadata. Neither of these risks is greater for this
encoding than for any of the mainstream methods for expressing metadata
(e.g., [MARC]). No other security concerns are likely to be raised by
the HTML encoding documented here.
10. Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (date). All Rights Reserved.
This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
or assist in its implmentation may be prepared, copied, published and
distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind,
provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this
document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing
Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined
in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to
translate it into languages other than English.
The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.
This document and the information contained herein is provided on an
"AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING
TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT
NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL
NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any
copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary
rights which may cover technology that may be required to practice
this standard. Please address the information to the IETF Executive
Director.
11. Appendix -- Perl Scripts that Manipulate HTML Encoded Metadata
This section contains two simple programs that work with versions 4 and
5 of the Perl [PERL] scripting language interpreter. They may be taken
and freely adapted for local organizational needs, research proposals,
venture capital bids, etc. A variety of applications are within easy
reach of implementors that choose to build on these scripts.
Script 1: Metadata Format Conversion
-------------------------------------
Here is a simple Perl script that correctly recognizes every example of
metadata encoding in this document. It shows how a modest scripting
effort can produce a utility that converts metadata from one format to
another. Minor changes are sufficient to support a number of output
formats.
#!/depot/bin/perl
#
# This simple perl script extracts metadata embedded in an HTML file
# and outputs it in an alternate format. Issues warning about missing
# element name or value.
#
# Handles mixed case tags and attribute values, one per line or spanning
# several lines. Also handles a quoted string spanning multiple lines.
# No error checking. Does not tolerate more than one "<meta" per line.
print "@(urc;\n";
while (<>) {
next if (! /<meta/i);
($meta) = /(<meta.*$)/i;
if (! /<meta.*>/i) {
while (<>) {
$meta .= $_;
last if (/>/);
}
}
$name = $meta =~ /name\s*=\s*"([^"]*)"/i
? $1 : "MISSING ELEMENT NAME";
$content = $meta =~ /content\s*=\s*"([^"]*)"/i
? $1 : "MISSING ELEMENT VALUE";
($scheme) = $meta =~ /scheme\s*=\s*"([^"]*)"/i;
($lang) = $meta =~ /lang\s*=\s*"([^"]*)"/i;
if ($lang || $scheme) {
$mod = " ($lang";
if (! $scheme)
{ $mod .= ")"; }
elsif (! $lang)
{ $mod .= "$scheme)" }
else
{ $mod .= ", $scheme)"; }
}
else
{ $mod = ""; }
print " @|$name$mod; $content\n";
}
print "@)urc;\n";
# ---- end of Perl script ----
When the conversion script is run on the metadata file example from
the LINK tag section (section 5), it produces the following output.
@(urc;
@|DC.Title; A Dirge
@|DC.Creator; Shelley, Percy Bysshe
@|DC.Type; poem
@|DC.Date; 1820
@|DC.Format; text/html
@|DC.Language; en
@)urc;
Script 2: Automated Metadata Creation
--------------------------------------
The creation and maintenance of high-quality metadata can be extremely
expensive without automation to assist in processes such as supplying
pre-set or computed defaults, validating syntax, verifying value ranges,
spell checking, etc. Considerable relief could be had from a script
that reduced an individual provider's metadata burden to just the title
of each document. Below is such a script. It lets the provider of an
HTML document abbreviate an entire embedded resource description using
a single HTML comment statement that looks like
<!--metablock Little Red Riding Hood -->
Our script processes this statement specially as a kind of "metadata
block" declaration with attached title. The general form is
<!--metablock TITLE_OF_DOCUMENT -->
This statement works much like a "Web server-side include" in that the
script replaces it with a fully-specified block of metadata and triggers
other replacements. Once installed, the script can output HTML files
suitable for integration into one's production Web server procedures.
The individual provider keeps a separate "template" file of infrequently
changing pre-set values for metadata elements. If the provider's needs
are simple enough, the only element values besides the title that differ
from one document to the next may be generated automatically. Using the
script, values may be referenced as variables from within the template
or within the document. Our variable references have the form
"(--mbVARNAME)", and here is what they look like inside a template:
<title> (--mbtitle) </title>
<meta name = "DC.Creator"
content = "Simpson, Homer">
<meta name = "DC.Title"
content = "(--mbtitle)">
<meta name = "DC.Date.Created"
content = "(--mbfilemodtime)">
<meta name = "DC.Identifier"
content = "(--mbbaseURL)/(--mbfilename)">
<meta name = "DC.Format"
content = "text/html; (--mbfilesize)">
<meta name = "DC.Language"
content = "(--mblanguage)-BUREAUCRATESE">
<meta name = "RC.MetadataAuthority"
content = "Springfield Nuclear">
<link rel = "schema.DC"
href = "http://purl.org/DC/elements/1.0/">
<link rel = "schema.RC"
href = "http://nukes.org/ReactorCore/rc">
The above template represents the metadata block that will describe the
document once the variable references are replaced with real values.
By the conventions of our script, the following variables will be
replaced in both the template and in the document:
(--mbfilesize) size of the final output file
(--mbtitle) title of the document
(--mblanguage) language of the document
(--mbbaseURL) beginning part of document identifier
(--mbfilename) last part (minus .html) of identifier
(--mbfilemodtime) last modification date of the document
Here's an example HTML file to run the script on.
<html>
<head>
<!--metablock Nutritional Allocation Increase -->
<meta name = "DC.Type"
content = "Memorandum">
</head>
<body>
<p>
From: Acting Shift Supervisor
To: Plant Control Personnel
RE: (--mbtitle)
Date: (--mbfilemodtime)
<p>
Pursuant to directive DOH:10.2001/405aec of article B-2022,
subsection 48.2.4.4.1c regarding staff morale and employee
productivity standards, the current allocation of doughnut
acquisition funds shall be increased effective immediately.
</body>
</html>
Note that because replacement occurs throughout the document, the
provider need only enter the title once instead of twice (normally the
title must be entered once in the HTML head and again in the HTML body).
After running the script, the above file is transformed into this:
<html>
<head>
<title> Nutritional Allocation Increase </title>
<meta name = "DC.Creator"
content = "Simpson, Homer">
<meta name = "DC.Title"
content = "Nutritional Allocation Increase">
<meta name = "DC.Date.Created"
content = "1999-03-08">
<meta name = "DC.Identifier"
content = "http://moes.bar.com/doh/homer.html">
<meta name = "DC.Format"
content = "text/html; 1320 bytes">
<meta name = "DC.Language"
content = "en-BUREAUCRATESE">
<meta name = "RC.MetadataAuthority"
content = "Springfield Nuclear">
<link rel = "schema.DC"
href = "http://purl.org/DC/elements/1.0/">
<link rel = "schema.RC"
href = "http://nukes.org/ReactorCore/rc">
<meta name = "DC.Type"
content = "Memorandum">
</head>
<body>
<p>
From: Acting Shift Supervisor
To: Plant Control Personnel
RE: Nutritional Allocation Increase
Date: 1999-03-08
<p>
Pursuant to directive DOH:10.2001/405aec of article B-2022,
subsection 48.2.4.4.1c regarding staff morale and employee
productivity standards, the current allocation of doughnut
acquisition funds shall be increased effective immediately.
</body>
</html>
Here is the script that accomplishes this transformation.
#!/depot/bin/perl
#
# This Perl script processes metadata block declarations of the form
# <!--metablock TITLE_OF_DOCUMENT --> and variable references of the
# form (--mbVARNAME), replacing them with full metadata blocks and
# variable values, respectively. Requires a "template" file.
# Outputs an HTML file.
#
# Invoke this script with a single filename argument, "foo". It creates
# an output file "foo.html" using a temporary working file "foo.work".
# The size of foo.work is measured after variable replacement, and is
# later inserted into the file in such a way that the file's size does
# not change in the process. Has little or no error checking.
$infile = shift;
open(IN, "< $infile")
or die("Could not open input file \"$infile\"");
$workfile = "$infile.work";
unlink($workfile);
open(WORK, "+> $workfile")
or die("Could not open work file \"$workfile\"");
@offsets = (); # records locations for late size replacement
$title = ""; # gets the title during metablock processing
$language = "en"; # pre-set language here (not in the template)
$baseURL = "http://moes.bar.com/doh"; # pre-set base URL here also
$filename = "$infile.html"; # final output filename
$filesize = "(--mbfilesize)"; # replaced late (separate pass)
($year, $month, $day) = (localtime( (stat IN) [9] ))[5, 4, 3];
$filemodtime = sprintf "%s-%02s-%02s", 1900 + $year, 1 + $month, $day;
sub putout { # outputs current line with variable replacement
if (! /\(--mb/) {
print WORK;
return;
}
if (/\(--mbfilesize\)/) # remember where it was
{ push @offsets, tell WORK; } # but don't replace yet
s/\(--mbtitle\)/$title/g;
s/\(--mblanguage\)/$language/g;
s/\(--mbbaseURL\)/$baseURL/g;
s/\(--mbfilename\)/$filename/g;
s/\(--mbfilemodtime\)/$filemodtime/g;
print WORK;
}
while (<IN>) { # main loop for input file
if (! /(.*)<!--metablock\s*(.*)/) {
&putout;
next;
}
$title = $2;
$_ = $1;
&putout;
if ($title =~ s/\s*-->(.*)//) {
$remainder = $1;
}
else {
while (<IN>) {
$title .= $_;
last if (/(.*)\s*-->(.*)/);
}
$title .= $1;
$remainder = $2;
}
open(TPLATE, "< template")
or die("Could not open template file");
while (<TPLATE>) # subloop for template file
{ &putout; }
close(TPLATE);
$_ = $remainder;
&putout;
}
close(IN);
# Now replace filesize variables without altering total byte count.
select( (select(WORK), $| = 1) [0] ); # first flush output so we
if (($size = -s WORK) < 100000) # can get final file size
{ $scale = 0; } # and set scale factor or
else { # compute it, keeping width of size field low
for ($scale = 0; $size >= 1000; $scale++)
{ $size /= 1024; }
}
$filesize = sprintf "%7.7s %sbytes",
$size, (" ", "K", "M", "G", "T", "P") [$scale];
foreach $pos (@offsets) { # loop through saved size locations
seek WORK, $pos, 0; # read the line found there
$_ = <WORK>;
# $filesize must be exactly as wide as "(--mbfilesize)"
s/\(--mbfilesize\)/$filesize/g;
seek WORK, $pos, 0; # rewrite it with replacement
print WORK;
}
close(WORK);
rename($workfile, "$filename")
or die("Could not rename \"$workfile\" to \"$filename\"");
# ---- end of Perl script ----
12. Author's Address
John A. Kunze
Center for Knowledge Management
University of California, San Francisco
530 Parnassus Ave, Box 0840
San Francisco, CA 94143-0840, USA
Email: [log in to unmask]
Fax: +1 415-476-4653
13. References
[AAT] Art and Architecture Thesaurus, Getty Information Institute,
http://www.gii.getty.edu/vocabulary/aat.html
[ADMIN] Admin Core - Administrative Container Metadata, (in progress)
ftp://ftp.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-iannella-admin-00.txt
[DC1] RFC 2413, Dublin Core Metadata for Resource Discovery,
September 1998, ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2413.txt
[DCHOME] Dublin Core Initiative Home Page,
http://purl.org/DC/
[DCPROJECTS]
Projects Using Dublin Core Metadata,
http://purl.org/DC/projects/index.htm
[DCT1] Dublin Core Type List 1, DC Type Working Group, March 1999,
http://www.loc.gov/marc/typelist.html
[freeWAIS-sf2.0]
The enhanced freeWAIS distribution, February 1999,
http://ls6-www.cs.uni-dortmund.de/ir/projects/freeWAIS-sf/
[GLIMPSE] Glimpse Home Page,
http://glimpse.cs.arizona.edu/
[HARVEST] Harvest Web Indexing,
http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/harvest/
[HTML4.0] Hypertext Markup Language 4.0 Specification, April 1998,
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/
[ISEARCH] Isearch Resources Page,
http://www.etymon.com/Isearch/
[ISO639-2]
Code for the representation of names of languages, 1996,
http://www.indigo.ie/egt/standards/iso639/iso639-2-en.html
[ISO8601] ISO 8601:1988(E), Data elements and interchange formats --
Information interchange -- Representation of dates and times,
International Organization for Standardization, June 1988.
[MARC] USMARC Format for Bibliographic Data, US Library of Congress,
http://lcweb.loc.gov/marc/marc.html
[PERL] L. Wall, T. Christiansen, R. Schwartz, Programming Perl,
Second Edition, O'Reilly, 1996.
[RDF] Resource Description Framework Model and Syntax Specification,
February 1999, http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-rdf-syntax/
[RFC1766] RFC 1766, Tags for the Identification of Languages,
http://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc1766.txt
[SWISH-E] Simple Web Indexing System for Humans - Enhanced,
http://sunsite.Berkeley.EDU/SWISH-E/
[TGN] Thesaurus of Geographic Names, Getty Information Institute,
http://www.gii.getty.edu/tgn_browser/
[WTN8601] W3C Technical Note - Profile of ISO 8601 Date and Time Formats
http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-datetime
[XML] Extensible Markup Language (XML),
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml
Internet-Draft (Informational) Expires 18 November 1999
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